thuvia ptarth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thuviaptarth) wrote2004-08-02 12:29 am
thuviaptarth) wrote2004-08-02 12:29 am
Two X vids
Ermac Studios, Lord's Prayer (X OVA/TV)
This vid is set to "Vater Unser (Psalm 23 Club Mix)" by E Nomine, which is a German techno remix of the 23rd Psalm. This strikes me as just right for a series with more crucifixion imagery than the average Gothic cathedral. X is about an apocalyptic battle for the fate of the world, and this vid makes a good introduction, despite the use of potentially spoilery clips. The most spoilery are from the OVA, which is included as "Episode 0" in the collected episodes, the producers apparently being of the opinion that if you can't make a character development psychologically plausible, at least you can put in lots of foreshadowing. In addition to this, you will be spoiled for the death of a character who practically has "Sacrificial Lamb" tattooed on their forehead from their very first appearance.
I do particularly like this as an introduction to X because it uses visually/technically striking means to convey key aspects of the series: the repetition of distinctive imagery, the opposition of paired characters, a sense of urgency and threat, a sense of peace and hope. The first section starts with a pulsating set of clips that fade to black almost before they're visible--boys raising swords, swords wrapped in ribbons, wheels turning--giving the sense of some great epic being set in motion. The second and longest section flashes transparencies of character shots over long tracking background shots of opposed pairs of characters, interspersed with enough action clips to show that the opposed characters will end up fighting each other; the transparencies repeat in the same order (different shots, same characters) over each different background, which is a neat visual encoding of the idea that all the struggles replicate the same larger battle in microcosm. The different sets of images are also linked by similar internal imagery: circles and globes (stars in circles, moons, rings of dragons swallowing each other's tails, a girl's face caught in a circular rifle scope) and hands reaching or clasping. We end, finally, with a series of longer clips which offer a coherent narrative--or at least a particular and comprehensible longer action--for the first time: a winged girl slowly letting go of a man's hands as she rises into the air, beating her wings; feathers drifting down as deep bells toll and a man recites the Lord's Prayer in German. It is, finally, the change from the first two sections' rapid alteration of clips to the slower, more meditative ending that makes this linger for me.
Bits I particularly liked: The transparent overlay of Kamui's face in the curve of the moon as he looks down from Tokyo Tower; the moon caught in a ring of dragons as wolves bay in the background.
Katherine Montgomery, Anthem X (X TV)
This is spoilerish for the same things as "Lord's Prayer."
I found this while spelunking at AnimeMusicVideos. I thought, frankly, it would be a trainwreck; I can't think of many songs less reminiscent of X than the knowing old-fashioned tart-sweetness of Rufus Wainwright's "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" with its comic oompaloompah rhythm. I started watching it with great skepticism, thinking, "This shouldn't work at all," and then thinking, "And yet, strangely, it does." By the end, I had been thoroughly brainwashed: "Cigarettes and chocolate milk! Yes! That explains the weird Gothic noir sweetness of X perfectly!" I wouldn't have thought this suited to an audience unfamiliar with the source, but it seemed to work for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
geekturnedvamp.
I'm not sure how describe this. It starts off as light-hearted and comic, and it never does lose its sense of humor, but it does get darker and sadder and in some ways sweeter as it goes on. I showed it togeekturnedvamp because she mentioned one of the things she liked about anime vids was the reliance on symbolic objects rather than just people and actions, and this one has some very nice use of objects -- from the opening traffic light and heartbeat monitor to the eponymous cigarettes to all the sweets that stand in for chocolate milk, sugar buns and candy sticks and the face of the sweetest girl in the world. By the end, chocolate milk is associated with metaphorical sweetness, and cigarettes with pain and sadness, and this sounds very by the numbers, but it works.
Things I particularly liked:
0:50-1:00 And then there's those other things/Which for several reasons we won't mention- The golems forming out of shadow and mud/Kamui fighting the spirit-men, both because the change of action matches the change in music, and because these battles are the things Kamui is not mentioning to Kotori and Fuma at this point
1:55 Thinking about places While Kamui is looking down from Tokyo Tower (the boy clearly has a tropism for heights during times of stress, which alas will go tragically awry).
The scrappy boys' faces bit is slightly too arch for me, but the vidder's got me again by the clip of Yuto pulling red cord on Playing with prodigal sons
2:23 You gotta keep in the game The clip of basketball here would be too literal and too forced, if it weren't backed by the meaning of the clip in the series -- Fuma trying to keep Kamui "in the game"/emotionally connected in a way that actually pulls Kamui deeper into "the game"/the events leading up to the end of the world.
The intercutting of the Tokiko/Saya stories is nicely done. The closing clips of various bloody messes (cigarettes) interspersed with Kamui embracing Kotori (chocolate milk) are very effective, sort of sadly sweet, and ending with the broken doll as emblematic of all the broken people (and all the imaginative ways CLAMP breaks them) is strangely but perfectly right.
This vid is set to "Vater Unser (Psalm 23 Club Mix)" by E Nomine, which is a German techno remix of the 23rd Psalm. This strikes me as just right for a series with more crucifixion imagery than the average Gothic cathedral. X is about an apocalyptic battle for the fate of the world, and this vid makes a good introduction, despite the use of potentially spoilery clips. The most spoilery are from the OVA, which is included as "Episode 0" in the collected episodes, the producers apparently being of the opinion that if you can't make a character development psychologically plausible, at least you can put in lots of foreshadowing. In addition to this, you will be spoiled for the death of a character who practically has "Sacrificial Lamb" tattooed on their forehead from their very first appearance.
I do particularly like this as an introduction to X because it uses visually/technically striking means to convey key aspects of the series: the repetition of distinctive imagery, the opposition of paired characters, a sense of urgency and threat, a sense of peace and hope. The first section starts with a pulsating set of clips that fade to black almost before they're visible--boys raising swords, swords wrapped in ribbons, wheels turning--giving the sense of some great epic being set in motion. The second and longest section flashes transparencies of character shots over long tracking background shots of opposed pairs of characters, interspersed with enough action clips to show that the opposed characters will end up fighting each other; the transparencies repeat in the same order (different shots, same characters) over each different background, which is a neat visual encoding of the idea that all the struggles replicate the same larger battle in microcosm. The different sets of images are also linked by similar internal imagery: circles and globes (stars in circles, moons, rings of dragons swallowing each other's tails, a girl's face caught in a circular rifle scope) and hands reaching or clasping. We end, finally, with a series of longer clips which offer a coherent narrative--or at least a particular and comprehensible longer action--for the first time: a winged girl slowly letting go of a man's hands as she rises into the air, beating her wings; feathers drifting down as deep bells toll and a man recites the Lord's Prayer in German. It is, finally, the change from the first two sections' rapid alteration of clips to the slower, more meditative ending that makes this linger for me.
Bits I particularly liked: The transparent overlay of Kamui's face in the curve of the moon as he looks down from Tokyo Tower; the moon caught in a ring of dragons as wolves bay in the background.
Katherine Montgomery, Anthem X (X TV)
This is spoilerish for the same things as "Lord's Prayer."
I found this while spelunking at AnimeMusicVideos. I thought, frankly, it would be a trainwreck; I can't think of many songs less reminiscent of X than the knowing old-fashioned tart-sweetness of Rufus Wainwright's "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" with its comic oompaloompah rhythm. I started watching it with great skepticism, thinking, "This shouldn't work at all," and then thinking, "And yet, strangely, it does." By the end, I had been thoroughly brainwashed: "Cigarettes and chocolate milk! Yes! That explains the weird Gothic noir sweetness of X perfectly!" I wouldn't have thought this suited to an audience unfamiliar with the source, but it seemed to work for
geekturnedvamp.I'm not sure how describe this. It starts off as light-hearted and comic, and it never does lose its sense of humor, but it does get darker and sadder and in some ways sweeter as it goes on. I showed it to
geekturnedvamp because she mentioned one of the things she liked about anime vids was the reliance on symbolic objects rather than just people and actions, and this one has some very nice use of objects -- from the opening traffic light and heartbeat monitor to the eponymous cigarettes to all the sweets that stand in for chocolate milk, sugar buns and candy sticks and the face of the sweetest girl in the world. By the end, chocolate milk is associated with metaphorical sweetness, and cigarettes with pain and sadness, and this sounds very by the numbers, but it works.Things I particularly liked:
0:50-1:00 And then there's those other things/Which for several reasons we won't mention- The golems forming out of shadow and mud/Kamui fighting the spirit-men, both because the change of action matches the change in music, and because these battles are the things Kamui is not mentioning to Kotori and Fuma at this point
1:55 Thinking about places While Kamui is looking down from Tokyo Tower (the boy clearly has a tropism for heights during times of stress, which alas will go tragically awry).
The scrappy boys' faces bit is slightly too arch for me, but the vidder's got me again by the clip of Yuto pulling red cord on Playing with prodigal sons
2:23 You gotta keep in the game The clip of basketball here would be too literal and too forced, if it weren't backed by the meaning of the clip in the series -- Fuma trying to keep Kamui "in the game"/emotionally connected in a way that actually pulls Kamui deeper into "the game"/the events leading up to the end of the world.
The intercutting of the Tokiko/Saya stories is nicely done. The closing clips of various bloody messes (cigarettes) interspersed with Kamui embracing Kotori (chocolate milk) are very effective, sort of sadly sweet, and ending with the broken doll as emblematic of all the broken people (and all the imaginative ways CLAMP breaks them) is strangely but perfectly right.
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'Lord's Prayer' is actually the video I show people who want to decide whether or not to watch X, because I find that whether or not they care for the video, it communicates the imagery of the series so well that it will tell people whether they will find the show interesting.
How do you find your vids, by the way? You've run across several that sound interesting to me, and I keep meaning to give you a few recs, because we seem to locate different yet overlapping sets of videos, which seems odd.
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P.S.
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